Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1887-09-10


boughs and cool shade. If western Kan
sas was thus adorned the sun in its jour-
ney would not shine on fairer country.
I know man who in the eastern part
of the state thirty years ago set out forty
acres to orchard, largely apple. Scarcely
any one thought then that fruit could be
raised in Kansas, and his neighbors said
he was crazy. The trees all died and the
next season he set out more. They kept
dying and he kept setting out until finally
he got the whole forty acres covered with
growing trees. For the last ten years
that orchard has brought him clear
profit of five thousand dollars year. I
would say to the people of Greeley and
adjoining counties, plant trees. Should
they die (Which they will not If proper
care is used) replace them with others.
Success will finally crown your efforts
and few years will behold wonderful
change in the country. The mirage will
vanish and hot winds and bowling biz
yards will lose half their fury,
Equally as important is the breaking of
sod. The buffalo grass roots are 80 matted
together that they shed water like duck
back, and the heaviest rainfall only pene-
trates few inches. Where the ground
has been plowed the water soaks through
and is held in the earth. After the coun-
try is once cultivated water will be OBJ
tanned in most places at less than half the
depth where it is reached at present.
No one has more faith in the future of
western Kansas than your correspondent.
I honestly believe that the day is coming
when it will be the garden of the world.
But every wild country must be tanned
before it will respond to the efforts of the
husbandman. We have had an abund-
ance of rain this season to make crops
where the land was in proper condition.
Other counties to the east are utterly
parched with drouth. Give this country
in ten years from now the same amount
OF rain that has fallen this summer and
we will raise produce enough to feed the
whole United States.
SYLVESTER FOWLER.
Stowell, Kansas.
The above is q contribution to the
Greeley County Tribune. That paper
can afford to be proud of such CORES
pondence. It is such a summary of the
actual present condition of western Kan
sas as seldom finds its way into the pub
lie prints. Its advice, followed out, would
make of western Kansans a prosperous
people from their beginning to live here.
The World has gone over this time and
again, even to asserting that in the course
of time western Kansas will be the best
end of the state for comfortable homes.
Eventually the gentle, but positive, slope
of country from the longitude of Denver
to that of Salina will be forested. Then
the buffalo-grass sod will be thing OF
the past. Agriculture will be as success
fully followed as it is now in eastern Kan
sas. Anybody whose imagination has
any play can paint along this slope an in
fnitude of timber belts, conducting to the
of the rain which falls, and pre-
venting, in q measure, If not entirely, the
ravages of the farm pests which are now
30 common; he can see meadows and rip
ping rills at each turn of the car wheels;
be can see some of the finest horses, cat
tie and other live stock to be found on
either continent; he can see churches and
school houses of great architectural
beauty; he can see on every hand evil
dences of that thrift which can come only
rom sustaining the stock-farming and
home-manufacturing interests; he can
hear profusion Of birds sing and legions
of children prattle.
Alas! that this picture could not be hur-
red to completion by unity Of action on
he part OF the artists.